hey folks..i have been instaling and using linux os for many times...with succeed on intel x86 cpu,both intel and amd 64 bit cpu..,but today i have been searching for linux that work on old athlon xp 1800+..,with no luck.
i use my windows and lili usb creator to make bootable stick after that i like allways put usb on sister pc..,and it load till screen where a choose either to boot live or install sistem...
and that where everithing frezees!!i have try watos r6 x86,xubuntu 12.10,bodhi 2.2 32bit,peppermint 3,
anyone know some 32bit amd distro???

If you've tried a number of distros and none of them is working the problem isn't the distro, it's something else. I'd do these things:

1) Try a different USB stick and/or USB port.
2) If that fails, burn a CD and try that.
3) If that fails, try it with a different HDD.

If that fails it's time for some physical troubleshooting. Check the memory, cables for the HDD and make sure everything is connected properly and firmly. In fact the first thing you should do is to make sure everything is connected properly.

I have a pretty much identical problem with a small system I got from a friend, and it turned out that it probably is the IDE controller going bad.

it had win xp instaled on it but my sis got it "fixed"
did try few usb ,few ports,and burn one of those on cd but problem is that that old pc have lausy dvd-rom!!
im guesing il have to wait for my friend to return me my dvd and i will try cd on that one!!

i made bootable win xp today and instalation went smoth allmost to the end! allmost..
it finishe allright but when it needed to boot from hdd iv get error hall.dll file is mising try to reinstal it!! so im guesing maybe its hdd problem after all!! i downloaded hirensbot cd today and use some hdd program to search and recover bad sectors if it have them..but scaning i so slow on that machine.. so will give u info about it tomorow!!windows xp 32bit is i386 format?? so any linux i386 should work??

Sounds like the cd drive is crappy. Clear the cmos and installl ubuntu 11.10 off usb.
yes linux 32 bit distro will work.
Might be a bad hdd tho....
DBAN it and see if it completes a quick wipe (PRNG stream is quick and will wipe out the boot sector)

dont know what dban or prng is but i manage it!!
used hirens boot cd and make it bootable on usb..so scan hdd for bad sectors but there waren't any.
so i used activekilldisk to wright zeroes to hdd and after that i instaled peppermint os three with no problems!! but now i have diferent issue...i use AP client to conect to internet and my pc conect to ap but i cant acces internet?!? on my laptop is same issue on windows i conect and it work,when i boot to linux min(on my laptop) i conect to wireles router but cant acces internet!
i made thread about my mikrotik router here on tpu about how to make simple AP and after few days i made it but as i say'd on windows i can surf on linux cant?? ideas??

Older rigs don't always boot from USB properly. Try burning a CD or DVD with the installer image instead to see if it makes a difference. Also when I installed Ubuntu from a flash drive I had to manually mount the contents of the USB drive in busybox because the installer was having trouble finding and mounting it. Granted I was using a much newer computer with the alternate Ubuntu 12.04 LTS installer.

dvd drive that is in that pc is bad so i must use usb.
as i say'd i have install pepermint fine but cant go to internet! i when i type ip of my AP client in network manager and then on web browser i get into Ap and search for my network and find it and conect to it.. then i make network manager to acuaire ip seting automatic and it conect but then browser can find any web site..!?since i manage to install OS now its networking problem..i will make post on apropriate forum chanel!! thnx for help guys

if using wired then : ifconfig eth0 up
dhclient eth0 (or dhcpd eth0 if applicable)
if using wireless then : iwconfig wlan0 up (enter managed, essid, key, first)
dhclient (or dhcpd) wlan0
Some of the gui network programs have issues with dhcp.

Someone above mentioned dban and I agree -- the hard drive probably needs to be wiped with zeros first, before installing a linux distro. I use SystemRescuCD.

To do so, get into the BIOS and boot the optical drive with SysRescCD, hit <Enter> for default a few times until you get to the page that says for user to enter either "wizard" or "startx" at the multi-colored prompt. Instead, to wipe entire hard drive with zeros, enter the command

PHP:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4096 conv=notrunc,sync

Go have dinner, watch a movie or something until seeing four lines saying there is no more space to write to and two lines of numbers and last one giving the write rate. At the same prompt type "startx" and hit <enter> to yellow-colored window with prompt where type "gparted." I recommend formatting entire hard drive to ext2 file system to start then try Puppy linux booted either from USB stick or CD.

EDIT: looks like OP needs to boot to USB stick first before trying this; trouble on-going I am sorry to hear!
I made bootable USB with SysRescCD on it using UNetBootin

thnx for reply but i wipe it to zeroes allready.. using hirensbootCD, its great tool !!
but even that pc is giving me so hard times..after wiping out hdd and instaling peppermint three os
..,witch went just fine i had problems with playing yotube videos.. after download it can play any video.. but not on web.. i know it somekind of flash problem but i couldt find adobe flash in repositories..anyway after all that trouble i get optical drive from friend and instaled xp sp3 on it and it work just fine now.. thnx peeps!!